How Mozart Was Inspired by His Pet Starling

 by Emily E. Hogstad  October 23rd, 2017

On 27 May 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bought a pet starling bird at a Viennese pet shop.

Normally historians and musicologists don’t pay much attention to composers’ pets, but this starling wasn’t your average pet. Because when Mozart recorded the thirty-four kreutzer expense in his diary, he also transcribed a melody purportedly sung by his new bird. He included two versions: one that the bird sang (which included an out-of-place G-sharp), and another that was “cleaned up” for insertion into a piece of concert music.

Eagle-eyed (or -eared!) listeners will immediately recognize this as the theme of the finale to Mozart’s seventeenth piano concerto, K453.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17   

Believe it or not, this pet store purchase actually raises some serious musicological questions. Mozart wrote on the score that he completed the work April 12, and he wrote in his expense diary that he bought the concerto-singing bird on May 27. The earliest public performance of the concerto (that we know of, anyway) was by a Mozart student on June 13.

So what came first: the concerto or the birdsong? Historians have offered a number of potential explanations. Perhaps the concerto was actually premiered in late April, when Mozart gave a concert at the prestigious Kärntnertortheater, and the shopkeeper or another customer then taught the theme to the bird. (To a certain extent, starlings can reproduce melodies that they hear.) Maybe Mozart himself hummed and whistled at the bird during the piece’s composition, teaching it the theme for a period of time before he actually bought it. Or maybe Mozart had visited the bird earlier in the spring, been inspired by its song, wrote the concerto, and later came back to buy it. As of today, there is no universal consensus among scholars.

It seems likely that Mozart enjoyed life with his new starling. Despite their modern reputation as invasive pests, starlings are sociable creatures, as well as clever and hardy. Their numbers prove it: a mere 200 released in New York’s Central Park in the 1890s eventually turned into 200 million by the 1980s. It’s easy to imagine the great composer bonding with such a persistent, vivacious, musical pet.

Tragedy struck Mozart’s life three years later. On 28 May 1787, after an illness that had lasted for several months, Wolfgang’s father Leopold died. Their relationship had always been fraught, but Wolfgang was still deeply saddened by his father’s passing. He wrote to a friend, “You can imagine the state I am in.”

Then, a week later his pet starling died. Due to distance, Mozart had been unable to attend his father’s funeral. Perhaps in compensation, he planned an elaborate ceremony for his dead pet. Veiled mourners sang hymns, and Mozart himself recited a poem he wrote. It begins: “A little fool lies here / Whom I held dear – / A starling in the prime / Of his brief time.”

Scholars are divided as to what exactly the starling actually meant to Mozart. Unfortunately, much of Mozart’s correspondence from this era has been lost, so we’re left to guess. Was the bird funeral meant as a genuinely heartfelt tribute to a beloved companion and pet? Was Mozart re-directing feelings he had about his father’s death onto his bird? Or was the whole funeral ritual merely a sarcastic “serio-comic” observance?

Mozart’s next project might offer us a clue. After his father and the starling’s deaths, the first composition that Mozart finished was A Musical Joke, K522. Many elements of this divertimento for two horns and string quartet are odd, including its strange harmonies and clumsy orchestration. Some historians believe that Mozart was parodying poor composers, but one credible theory is that he was actually paying tribute to the “illogical” awkwardness of starling song!  

You can read more about Mozart and his starling in American Scientist’s March-April 1990 issue, available here.

In addition, a book was released by naturalist and author Lyanda Lynn Haupt called Mozart’s Starling. She actually adopted a starling of her own in an attempt to understand Mozart’s relationship with his!

MOZART & KAROLINE PICHLER

* Karoline / Caroline von Greiner Pichler ( 1769 - 1843 ) was an Austrian novelist.

* Through her husband's encouragement and her own desires she led a salon for many years that was the center of the literary life in the Vienna.

Her salon was frequented by Beethoven, Schubert...

- As a young girl , Karoline met Haydn and was a pupil of Mozart, who regularly performed music of the Greiner's residence.

She describes her former teacher ( Mozart) in her MEMOIRS published in 1843;

" One day when I was sitting at the pianoforte playing the " Non piu andrai " from " Figaro ", Mozart, who was paying a visit to us, came up behind me; I must have been playing it to his satisfaction, for he hummed the melody as I played and beat the time on my shoulders; but then he suddenly moved a chair up, sat down, told me to carry on playing the bass, and began to improvise such wonderfully beautiful variations that everyone listened to the tones of the German Orpheus with bated breath.

But then suddenly tired of it, jumped up, and, in the mad mood which so often came over him, he began to leap over tables and chairs, miaow like a cat, and turn somersaults like an unruly boy. "

* Image : Caroline Pichler - 1843 / Lithographue by Johann Stadler

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Why Mozart Still Makes Us Laugh

 by Hermione Lai  January 19th, 2026

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often introduced as a miracle. He was a divine child, and a celestial genius, like a marble statue with a powdered wig. But the moment you actually listen to his music, the statue starts to grin.

Mozart’s music doesn’t stand politely in the corner, but it nudges you in the ribs, rolls its eyes, and occasionally trips over its own feet on purpose.

What makes Mozart remarkable is not just that he was brilliant, but that he is very funny. And not accidentally funny, or funny because you know a lot of music, but genuinely and immediately funny in the way human beings recognise across centuries.

As we celebrate Mozart’s 270th birthday on 27 January 2026, it becomes clear that his humour still works because it is rooted in human behaviour. Things like vanity, impatience, swagger, awkwardness, and the joy of seeing someone slightly overdo things.   

The Oldest Joke in the Book

Many Mozart jokes work on surprise, basically the same mechanism as a good punchline. You think you know where something is going, and then it doesn’t go there at all. Take the “Overture” to The Marriage of Figaro.

It hurtles forward at breakneck speed, bubbling with excitement, as if everyone is late and lying about it. There is no grand introduction, no dignified scene-setting. The music bursts in mid-thought, like someone already halfway through a conversation.

It’s funny because it feels completely uncontrolled and is barely containing its own energy. It’s perfect for setting up an opera where plans unravel almost immediately.   

Mockery with a Smile

If Mozart had lived today, he might have loved parody videos. His A Musical Joke K. 522 is exactly that. It’s a straight-faced spoof of bad composers and overconfident amateur performers.

The brilliance of the piece lies in how sincerely it pretends to be respectable. Nothing is signposted as a joke. The music smiles politely and behaves itself, at least at first. The opening sounds harmless enough, but soon, tiny cracks begin to show.

Harmonies arrive where they clearly shouldn’t, and melodies wander off mid-thought, distracted by something more interesting. Instruments appear not to be listening to one another, each cheerfully pursuing its own idea while the others carry on regardless.

By the end, the whole thing unravels into a glorious mess. Everyone tries to finish together and fails spectacularly. What makes the piece genuinely funny is Mozart’s restraint. He doesn’t push the joke too far or turn it into a caricature. Mozart knows exactly how close he has to stay to reality.  

When Seduction Becomes a Spreadsheet

Mozart’s operas are funny because the music refuses to keep secrets. Characters may try to present themselves as noble, innocent, or in control, but the orchestra has other ideas. It whispers, comments, contradicts, and occasionally bursts out laughing.

The result is comic timing of the highest order as people expose themselves not through what they say, but through what the music reveals behind their backs. Nowhere is this clearer than in Don Giovanni, and especially in Leporello’s famous “Catalogue Aria.” On paper, it is a list, but in practice, it becomes one of the most devastating comic portraits in opera.

The tune bounces along with brisk, almost businesslike cheer, as if Leporello were reading out the contents of a ledger or ticking items off a grocery list. The music is jaunty, efficient, and oddly proud of its own organisation. Meanwhile, the content grows more and more outrageous. Seductions blur into compulsions, and charm slides into predation.

The audience is left laughing slightly uncomfortably at the sheer absurdity of treating moral catastrophe as clerical work. That mismatch is the joke. The music sounds far too pleased with itself. Don Giovanni is never defended, never excused, and never directly condemned; he is simply reduced to a spreadsheet.    

Sighs, Schemes, and Smirks

In Così fan tutte, the trio “Soave sia il vento” sounds tender, heartfelt, and almost heartbreakingly sincere. And yet, if you know the story, the audience is in on the joke. Every note of beauty is delivered while the characters are actively deceiving each other, pretending to be someone they are not, and scheming with near-perfect dramatic obliviousness.

The humour here is both cruel and gentle. It’s cruel because the characters’ emotions are on display while they are lying, flirting, and swapping identities in ways that would make any bystander raise an eyebrow.

It’s gentle because Mozart never mocks them harshly but simply allows the gap between intention and reality to become laughably obvious. Think of it as the operatic equivalent of someone sending a perfectly earnest text while their friends know they’re setting up a prank.

The music is flawless and serious, while the characters are recognisably human, full of vanity, desire, and clueless overconfidence. It is a masterclass in operatic comedy. It is heartbreakingly beautiful, meticulously tender, and yet utterly aware of how ridiculous human behaviour can be.  

The Art of Instant Distraction

Rolando Villazón as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera © Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

And then there is “Papageno” in The Magic Flute, one of Mozart’s most delightful comic creations. Papageno’s charm lies not in heroism or sophistication but in his stubborn ordinariness. He whistles, he sulks, he panics, and he makes mistakes that are at once ridiculous and utterly relatable.

One of the best examples is his aria “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen,” in which Papageno fantasises about finding a partner. The melody is simple, almost plodding, bouncing along like a man trying to march confidently while tripping over his own feet.

He repeats the same ideas with childlike insistence, each iteration more desperate and endearing than the last. And then comes the aria’s comic peak. Papageno, in a moment of theatrical despair, threatens suicide only to be instantly distracted by the sound of bells signalling food or the promise of a wife.

Mozart perfectly times the orchestra to underline the absurdity. Papageno’s despair evaporates in a beat, replaced by delight, leaving the audience laughing at his quick flip-flop between panic and pleasure. Papageno is a reminder that life is absurd, chaotic, and sometimes wonderfully silly.  

Not-So-Final Farewells

One of Mozart’s favourite comic tricks is the fake ending. It’s the musical equivalent of saying goodbye three times, waving, and then standing in the doorway like he forgot something important.

It’s a subtle kind of mischief as the music seems to promise closure, only to pull the rug out from under the listener’s expectations. Take the final movement of the “Jupiter Symphony.” Just when you are leaning back, convinced the piece has triumphantly concluded, Mozart nudges the orchestra forward for one more cheeky flourish.

The effect is delightful as the listener is caught between surprise and admiration, laughing along with the composer’s playful audacity. This is comic timing in its purest, non-verbal form. The music is alive, aware of its audience, and utterly confident in its ability to provoke a smile.

Mozart’s genius was never just in the notes he wrote, but in the way he invited us to laugh at life itself. Mozart understood the absurd, unpredictable, and wonderfully human side of existence. Two hundred and seventy years on, his music still grins, nudges, and winks, reminding us that brilliance and humour should live happily together.

András Schiff Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major

695,539 views Premiered May 29, 2022

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 in E♭ major, K. 482 András Schiff, piano and conductor Cappella Andrea Barca Mozartwoche Salzburg, 2015

Mozart - Piano Concerto No.21, K.467 / Yeol Eum Son

26,147,536 views Dec 18, 2014

2011 Tchaikovsky Competition - Piano Round II, Phase II Mozart - Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 21 in C major, K.467 Yeol Eum Son (South Korea)

Famous Quotes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

by Hermione Lai, Interlude

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) penned a vast number of letters, starting from about the age of 14 and ranging to the last month of his life. Literally, thousands of these documents have been preserved, thanks to the foresight of his widow Constanze and her second husband Nissen. These unique documents are still the principal source of information about the events of his life and provide clues to Mozart’s character. In his letters, we find Mozart at his most intimate and unguarded, freely expressing his feelings about life, love, music, and the world around him.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

If we can trust current scholarly opinion, Mozart was a distinguished letter writer. In fact, he is described as “the most eloquent among musicians of his time.” During his travels he was a faithful correspondent, he wrote loving letters to his wife, and long money-seeking letters to friends and patrons. And as we all know, he also wrote some rather naughty letters to his cousin. As an artist profoundly inspired by the theatre, Mozart was an exceptional judge of character. And his letters are not “exotic discoveries suitable for being marveled at in a distant cabinet, but are bearers of communications.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, K. 622 

The Mozart letters are full of both trivial and important observations about the people he met, comments on the reactions to his music, satirical remarks on incompetent professions, thoughts on other composers, the process of performing, and his own methods of composition. But writing a blog on famous quotes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is not so easy. His use of language, his “use of dialect, semantics, and phonology can be difficult for the 21st-century readers to fully understand.” Nevertheless, here are some famous quotes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that present an informal and intimately detailed portrait of a genius.

“Nothing is more enjoyable than a quiet life and to obtain that, one must be industrious”

Mozart’s letters

As he wrote to his wife on 8 October 1791, Mozart was probably longing for a life exclusively dedicated to music, without all that financial stuff. He did have a habit of exaggerating his financial difficulties, but he certainly liked fine clothing, expensive apartments, and enjoyed living beyond his means. Some commentators have suggested that he might well have had a gambling problem as well. But one thing is for sure, he was incredibly industrious as a composer. The amount and quality of music composed during his short life is simply staggering. He left us roughly 800 works in virtually every genre of his time of the highest possible quality imaginable.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 10 for two pianos in E-flat Major, K. 365 “Allegro” 

“Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends”

Mozart was baptized a Catholic, and the church played an important role in his life. He was raised in a strict religious household with his father enforcing family prayer, fasting, the veneration of saints, regular attendance at mass, and frequent confession. In the words of Leopold Mozart, “God must come first! From his hands, we receive our temporal happiness and our eternal salvation.”

It is hardly surprising that the above famous quote from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart originates in a letter written to his father in 1782. However, Mozart’s relationship to religion was ambivalent, and his famous quote does not provide reliable information about his convictions but is probably a disguise in order to please his father. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t compose some of the most spiritual and devotional religious music in existence.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K. 618 

“Constanze is not ugly, but anything but beautiful; all her beauty consists of two little black eyes and a handsome figure”

Constanze Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber on 4 August 1782. Their courtship had not been smooth, and the relationship faced stiff opposition from Leopold Mozart. Leopold did not consider Constanze a good match for his son and didn’t want the marriage to go ahead. A good many letters went back and forth, with Mozart praising the talents of his love and Leopold refusing to let his mind be changed.

It probably didn’t help that the couple moved in together before they were married, making it a real disgrace for the time. Her mother threatened to call the police if she didn’t return home. In the end, Leopold could not prevent the marriage and in order to save face, his consent arrived in the mail one day after the happy event.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K. 331 

“To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart always placed great emphasis on elegant, natural, and singing melodies. He always wanted to communicate through melody. Mozart was essentially an operatic composer, and that particular style carried over into his instrumental works as well. In order to effectively perform Mozart’s music, we need to think like an opera singer but with simplicity of melody that can be easily sung by a coachman as well. In a related famous quote, Mozart wrote, “Melody is the essence of music.”

Antonio Salieri

To be sure, Mozart melodies are some of the most memorable pieces of music ever written. Mozart melodies are frequently described as flowing and beautiful, with an unmatched lightness and elegance. Some writers compare them to the sounds of a flowing river or the gentle flutter of a butterfly’s wing. But while they are light and airy, they have deep emotional qualities. Mozart’s melodies have a way of touching the soul and stirring emotions. Remember the Salieri movie, when the jealous composer commented upon hearing a Mozart melody that he had heard the voice of God?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro, “Voi che sapete” 

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a true child prodigy, and he is very often considered an exceptional and singular musical genius. As a performer, he quickly acquired superstar status and began to compose at the tender age of five. He completed his first symphony before celebrating his eighth birthday and finished his first opera by the age of twelve. And while his natural ability is undisputed, he remained a student throughout his life.

The Mozart family playing chamber music

Mozart unrelentingly integrated, synthesized, and transformed stylistic and musical conventions to produce compositions of universal appeal and stunning individuality. There simply seems to have been no genre or compositional technique in which Mozart was not comfortable. Mozart certainly worked on his compositional craft after he moved to Vienna, and for the first time saw musical manuscripts by J.S. Bach and Handel. He immediately started a concentrated study of counterpoint and began to improvise fugues in the style of Bach. And it was the synthesis of the Classical and learned styles of music that made the true genius of Mozart’s music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quintet in D Major, K. 593 

“How popular I would be if I were to lift the national German stage to recognition in music!”

Music had always played an essential role in the daily lives of Habsburg royalty. However, music at court and the opera had been dominated by the highly popular Italian style. However, Emperor Joseph II was eager to challenge that convention by advocating the “Singspiel,” a German-language music drama. His push for an autonomous German opera brought Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in direct competition with Antonio Salieri. Salieri was a well-respected star, and Mozart was the new kid in town when the Emperor challenged both composers to write an opera on the same subject, one in the Italian style and the other taking up the challenge for German opera.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Stage set for the Queen of the Night (in Mozart’s Magic Flute)

It wasn’t much of a competition as Salieri’s Prima la Musica, poi le Parole (First the Music and then the Words) in the fashionable Italian style, soundly defeated Mozart’s Schauspieldirector (The Impresario). The plan of the Emperor, who was hoping for Mozart and German opera to win the day, failed badly that evening. However, Mozart soon demonstrated his mastery of both genres with Le nozze di Figaro and the Magic Flute. And in the end, of course, he did accomplish what he set out to do in his famous quote.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute, “Queen of the Night” 

“I care very little for Salzburg and not at all for the archbishop; I shit on both of them”

The city of Salzburg has always been a small but pretentious provincial town. A few selected families got very rich from the salt trade, and they controlled and dominated virtually all aspects of civic and ecclesiastical life. That ruling civic elite had very little interest in having a gifted composer interfere with their conservative practices. Mozart was the musical servant of Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo, and he was well aware of Mozart’s distaste for the city and for his own person.

Hieronymus von Colloredo (1732-1812), Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg

The Archbishop became exceptionally annoyed with Mozart’s frequent absences resulting in a number of heated arguments. Breaking with the Archbishop was not going to be easy, and Mozart lobbied and even begged his father for support. He wanted to be a freelance musician, and was rightfully tired of being “spoken to as if I had been some miserable beggar.” Their working contract was resolved in May 1781, when the chief chamberlain delivered a swift kick to Mozart’s backside. Isn’t it ironic that present-day Salzburg continues to reap the financial rewards of a relationship that never existed? 

“Death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived during a period of history when high mortality was simply a fact of life. Several of his siblings died in childhood, and the union of Wolfgang and Constanze produced six children, but only two survived infancy. Wolfgang was deeply affected by the death of his father, and his mother died of a long and painful illness. His own health had started to deteriorate at the age of five. He suffered from rheumatism, which frequently caused kidney infections that confined him to bed.

Austria, Vienna, St. Marx Cemetery, The gravestone of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart had plenty of time to consider his own mortality, and he writes, “I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death’s image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity… of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that, young as I am, I may not live to see another day.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Mass in C minor, K. 427 “Kyrie” 

“Shit in your bed and make it burst”

The nine surviving letters by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart are known as the “Bäsle Letters.” She was the daughter of one of the brothers of Mozart’s father Leopold, and in his letters Mozart famously uses direct and frank language, which is sometimes drastically vulgar and spiced with anal-erotic fantasies. This kind of scatological humor has puzzled scholars, and more recently, it is claimed to originate in psychiatric conditions from which Mozart supposedly suffered.

A drawing by Mozart in his Basel Letters to her cousin Maria Anna Thekla

For some commentators, “Mozart was able for a moment to forget the continuous pressures of an uncertain future, and allowed his light-hearted and humorous side of his character to come through.” One thing for sure, “these letters embarrass us, and we have tried to suppress them, trivialize them, or explain them away with pathological excuses.” It might well be that 18th-century scatological humor was far more public and mainstream, and it might well have suggested a political dimension. In a letter to his father, he describes the aristocrats present at a concert in Augsburg as “Duchess Smackarse, Countess Pleasurepisser, the Princess Stinkmess, and the two Princes Potbelly von Pigdick.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Leck mich am Arsch” (Kiss my Ass), K. 231 

“What’s even worse than a flute? – Two flutes!”

We still don’t know for certain if this famous quote can be wholly attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, we do know that he did not like the sound of the solo flute and found it difficult to compose for the instrument. As he was struggling to fulfill a commission for the wealthy amateur flautist he truly loathed, he writes to his father. “I never have a quiet hour here… besides, one is not always in the mood for working. I could certainly scribble things the whole day long, but when a composition of this kind goes out into the world, naturally I do not want to be ashamed of my name on the title page. Moreover, you know I am quite powerless to write for an instrument (the flute) which I cannot bear.”

As we might well imagine, countless famous quotes by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have been misattributed. I guess, if you are famous and dead, people are ever so happy to put words in your mouth. What is your favorite Mozart quote?